


Trunks and friends and Christmas

by bunnysworld



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Christmas Fluff, M/M, RPF, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 05:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2721200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunnysworld/pseuds/bunnysworld
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a huge trunk in Colin's living room that wasn't there when he left the house</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trunks and friends and Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> This popped up in my head when...oh, you'll see :)
> 
> Thanks to issy for the beta. Anything still in there is entirely my own :D
> 
> Never happened. Oh well, in my head, it happened in my head. And only there. :D

Colin blinked. The huge trunk that sat in the middle of his living room hadn’t been there before he left the house to do some last minute grocery shopping before the stores closed for Christmas. He was actually a bit annoyed about all the fake Christmas cheer the shops tried to spread just to make you buy more stuff than you actually needed. When he found out that he wouldn’t have to work on Christmas Eve, he’d tried to book a ticket to go see his family for the holidays, but then had mentally flipped the airlines off. He was one of the lucky actors who worked constantly but that didn’t mean he was made out of gold. So he had done his best to put a bit of Christmas cheer into his place with a tiny tree that he’d tossed some tinsel on and had given up halfway through the process of hanging the baubels. It was a lot of work and the leafs of the tree poked you in hands and fingers. The tree would have to do without the rest of the baubles. 

His initial plan had been to cook something yummy and to eat it in front of the TV, watching ‘Nightmare before Christmas’ or some of his other favorite movies and to send a whatsapp with a very cheery sounding ‘Merry Christmas’ to all his friends at midnight and then go to bed and try to sleep until boxing day. Being alone for Christmas sucked. 

But now there was this giant trunk blocking most of the space in the room and Colin had no idea where it came from and who put it there. He set his backpack and his additional shopping bags down by the door, his eyes never leaving the object sitting there. 

“Hello?” 

His first thought was that there were burglars in his place, but those people usually took something and didn’t leave anything but destruction and chaos. They sure didn’t leave trunks. 

“Mrs. Snyders?” His landlady was actually the only other person with a spare key to his place. But she could barely climb the stairs much less drag something this big up here.

Carefully, Colin approached the trunk. “Anyone here?” Then he saw the sign.

‘Let me out!’

Colin looked around, convinced that this was one of Eoin’s pranks. As soon as he opened the trunk, something horrible would jump at him and there were cameras hidden everywhere that would capture his face and he would never live it down. “Okay, Eoin, whatever this is, it’s not funny!”

Very carefully, Colin snapped one of the locks open and jumped to the side, eyeing the trunk, but nothing happened. With beating heart, he opened the second one and the lid swung to the side. 

He would never admit to almost having shrieked when a body tumbled out of the trunk. A very familiar body that slowly scrambled up, complaining about what took him so long and did he even know how uncomfortable it was in this thing?

“Bra…Bradley?” Colin stared. “Wha…huh?” Even though they’d skyped frequently lately, Colin still had to get used to the blond hair being gone. Bradley looked so different now. The contagious grin was the same as always, though.

“Yes, me! Surprise!” Bradley struck a tadaa-pose. 

“But…what the fuck is this supposed to mean?” It wasn’t that Colin wasn’t happy to see Bradley, it was a wonderful surprise on Christmas Eve that he was here and he already couldn’t get the grin off his face. From all of Bradley’s entrances and exits into and out of his life, this was by far the strangest, though.

Bradley looked at him seriously. “I don’t like to be stuck into suitcases.”

Blinking, Colin wondered what Bradley meant. “The press conference? You saw the press conference?”

“I watch every little piece of footage that I can get a hold of, but you know that.” Bradley looked questioningly at Colin. 

Colin closed what little space there was between them and wrapped his arms around Bradley’s neck. “You big old sap.” He leaned in and put a soft kiss on Bradley’s lips.

Nuzzling into Colin’s neck, Bradley murmured, “It hurt hearing that you stuck me into a suitcase and stored me away.”

Holding on real tight, Colin whispered, “Never you, Brad, never you.”

+++

They hauled the trunk out into the staircase a little while later and caught up while they prepared dinner like they’d done in old times, with Colin cooking and Bradley finishing decorating the tree, insisting that otherwise it wouldn’t be Christmas. After dinner, they snuggled up on the couch and watched a silly movie.

“You’re absolutely nuts, James.” Colin looked up. “Who helped you?”

Bradley took another sip of his beer and grinned. “Tom and Laura helped me getting the trunk, I just couldn’t get that organized from the other side of the planet. Mrs. Snyders found the idea ‘adorable’ and let us in.”

“Us?” Colin’s eyebrows shot up.

“Eoin put me in here when Tom saw you coming down the street.”

“And he put up some cameras?”

Laughing, Bradley shook his head. “I could talk him out of it.”

“How come I didn’t see Tom? It’s hard to miss him.” He looked at Bradley and then laughed. “Mrs. Snyders?”

“Yup, that’s where they were hiding as you entered the house. She seemed to be very fond of the two of them. She probably thinks they are together or something.”

“Something describes it pretty well.” Colin chuckles. “You are a crazy bunch with you as the craziest of them all. Going through all this trouble when you just could have called and told me that you weren’t thrilled by the way I expressed this. And told me that you would come over, I nearly bought a ticket to go to Armagh!”

“No risk, no fun.” Bradley winked. 

Colin scrambled up a bit, so he could kiss Bradley properly. When they broke for air, the bells of the nearby church chimed midnight.

“Merry Christmas,” Colin whispered, his eyes twinkling.

“Finally!” Bradley grinned. “Do I get to unwrap my pressie now?”

Colin jumped up, tossed a pillow at him and made his way to the bedroom, laughing all the way.


End file.
